Valiant Force Forum

If you want to go mid range, all the gem packs have a first time bonus of double Gems. After Emiko and early bird, the 675 Gems pack with double bonus will get you to Prestige 7 and grant you the blue 4* armor sets (if you don't want to spend, 4* equips are farmable and craftable in later stages). In this game, set bonus matters alot so if you don't get the whole 4* set, a full 3* set will be much better. You'll also have a nice amount of gem to do some summons with (don't use them all though). I think this is a nice Prestige level to be at for mid spender. 

Good advice. Haha. I haven't bought the Early Bird set yet, but it doesn't seem to show up in shop. Any idea why?

Early bird set disappears after 5 days I think.

Ahh, I see. I wished they stated that though =/
Thanks.

Not sure if you're troll baiting people with how rude you construct your words and sentences but..

• You better skip the Halloween and focus on leveling up. Even most CBT players had to skip at least 1 event because they were still far too weak.
• As already mentioned, it would be good to re-roll starting Valiants to get good ones with good faiths. I'd suggest getting a Freya (Ares/Zeus) or a Shizu (Ares/Hera) as they're "meta" right now for both PvP and PvE. 
• Continuing on what I mentioned above, I'm not sure how long those classes will stay "meta" as the Dev team is pretty active with regards to balancing. Mystics were the way to go and Shadows were practically useless (except gold farm event) in both PvP and PvE prior to the melee class buffs but look at how the tides have turned. 
• Always save your gems until you get 400 to do a 10 hero pull because you will get at least 1 4 star.
• Aim for item sets. As you are still new, it doesn't matter that much what prefix/stats they have as long as they're a set. You can start farming items with THE prefix/stats that you want on later stages of the game.
• Always finish your Daily Quests and do the Guide Quests as much as possible as they give good rewards. 
• Look at your heroes' aura directions and form a squad revolving it.
• Don't rush promoting your heroes to 5 star. Most of the time, a +2 4 star hero would be better than a plain 5 star hero if you compare their stats. If you do not have the resources yet, don't rush.
• Last but not the least, stop comparing CBT players and non CBT players. You didn't really miss a lot if you didn't get to play CBT. The devs already stated that there are no CBT exclusive items or heroes which means you will get a chance to get the previous event heroes (I myself missed the entire Lulu event). In the end, it's a matter of who pays more and who has better luck. Like any other game, you can only be lucky to be on the same level as a whaler if you are a F2P player.

TL;DR - There aren't really that many guides as of now because the game is still new and you have to consider that there were major changes to item sets and hero balancing a few weeks prior to release. There really isn't any kind of shortcut unless you have money to spend.